1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the field of telecommunications. In particular, the invention relates to a system and method for assisting the hearing impaired by a communications assistant while also facilitating the calling party's Caller ID into XML text or to be shown on any telephone for hard of hearing party to see.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is a necessity for humans to communicate with one another. There have been many inventions to assist such communication, especially in the field of devices or services for the deaf. However, most of these devices have been created using BAUDOT protocol, used for modem to modem communication, which was communicating at 45.5 baud. Commonly known devices are TDD or Teletype TTY. Some of the modem devices are TDD consisting of keyboard and display with built in modem.
Due to the proliferation of the internet, the present invention will provide a mechanism for to people to communicate with each other regardless of geographic boundaries. The present invention may be used with any telephone currently available or anything that will be invented in the future to assist the communications assistant or the operator. The present invention may replace many of those devices as it uses internet protocol which works over a global communications network. The present invention will further assist companies and service providers who are in the business of translating and transcribing.
The advantage of this invention described herein will allow the end user device to receive text or captioned text to be displayed. The words spoken by the called party will be transcribed by an operator or communications assistant for streaming as text to the device of an end user who is hearing impaired. The device may be any of IP phone, Blackberry, WM-Windows Mobile, Symbian (an operating system of NOKIA), Java, Flash, XML, etc., as is well known to those skilled in the art.
Accordingly, there is now provided with this invention an improved communications system for the hearing impaired effectively overcoming the aforementioned difficulties and longstanding problems inherent in the voice communication field. Additionally, this invention further promotes functional equivalency for the hard of hearing by providing Caller ID of the calling party instead of the Caller ID of the relay service provider. Other service providers currently providing IP CTS or IP Relay lack caller ID functionalities for the hard of hearing.